The public benefits of marriage: not just a “selection” effect

By Harry Benson

Divorce and separation – getting worse

In the UK, it is estimated that at least 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce. Cohabitees separate with far higher frequency. The consequences of such relationship breakdown are high. Adults face greatly increased risks to their well-being, health and wealth following divorce or separation. Marriage tends to take people out of poverty whereas divorce tends to take them into it. Their children also face consequences that can affect them profoundly throughout their life.

The direct costs of relationship breakdown to the UK taxpayer exceed £15bn p.a., equivalent to one quarter of the entire NHS bill. In stark contrast, a puny £5m p.a. is spent on promotion of marriage and prevention of relationship breakdown. In other words, for every £3,000 the government spends on the costs of divorce, it spends just £1 trying to prevent things getting worse. Things are getting worse.

The rising rate of relationship breakdown

• With cohabitation increasingly the norm, 40% of babies born in the UK are now born to unmarried parents. Yet cohabiting parents are also 4-5 times more likely than married parents to separate, leaving far more children than ever before to face the many increased risks to health and wealth outlined below.
• This is a major public health and wealth issue. Unless the rates of both divorce and cohabitation are stabilised and reversed, and marriage reinforced, the associated costs are guaranteed to skyrocket.

Consequences of divorce for children

• Poverty & stress. In the US, almost half the children of single black parents are poor, compared to less than a fifth in two parent black families; for whites the gap is as large though the rates are lower. Lack of money, parental time and attention, increase levels of ill-health and stress in poor children (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). A recent analysis found that these differences in poverty rates are not driven by race but by marital status and welfare dependency (Rector et al., 2001).
• Well-being & relationships. Although a child’s emotional well-being can improve following divorce from a "high-conflict" marriage, the majority of divorces follow "low-conflict" marriages: these have the most damaging immediate effects on children (Amato & Booth, 2001). A study of a 1958 UK cohort found that children of divorce experienced a 39% greater risk of mental health problems (Cherlin et al., 1998). A landmark 25-year US study of 93 children of divorce found that the immediate trauma of divorce is less important than during the first ten years of adult life, when man-woman relationships come to centre stage (Wallerstein, 2000). Adult children of divorce are 2-3 times more likely to cohabit and, if they do marry, are far more vulnerable to divorce, especially early in their marriage and the younger they were when their own parents divorced (Amato & Booth, 1997).
• Crime. A UK longitudinal study of 8-32 year old males found that parental divorce before age 10 was a major predictor of later adolescent delinquency and adult criminality (Farrington, 1990). In the US, divorce rates in any area of any city predicted robbery rates, regardless of economic and racial composition (Sampson, 1992).

Consequences of divorce for adults

• Health risks. Compared to the married, incidences of alcoholism, depression, any psychiatric disorder, and suicide are all about twice as likely amongst most or all categories of unmarried people (Robins & Reiger, 1991; Smith et al., 1988). A longitudinal study of 1,500 high IQ middle class found significantly higher mortality rates for those whose parents divorced (Tucker et al., 1997) especially when the divorce occurred before the child’s fourth birthday (Singh & Yu, 1996).
• Wealth risks. It costs more to live separately than together. Divorce therefore drains savings. Divorced men also earn less than when they were married and divorced women are disadvantaged in the labour market by previously specialising as mothers. For example, US household income falls by an average of 42% following divorce (Corcoran, 1994). Almost 50% of US households move into poverty following divorce (Heath, 1992). Single mothers are 3-4 times more likely to live in poverty than married mothers (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994).

The financial cost of relationship breakdown

• A Family Matters (2000) report for the Lords & Commons Family & Child Protection Group estimated the direct cost to the UK taxpayer conservatively at £15bn p.a. Over £8bn of this is for single parent welfare. The remainder divides amongst costs directly attributable to divorce, such as legal aid, protection against domestic violence, impact on health, etc.
• The cost to the economy in lost working hours was also estimated at a further £15bn. The effects of the reduction in productivity of divorced workers and reduced spending power of a home divided has not been calculated.
• Until the data on family structure are publicised and treated with greater objectivity and less political correctness, and firm action is taken, demands on the government and taxpayer will rise inexorably.